Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 02] (45 page)

This was highly amusing. “With what? You haven’t the coin to pay your taxes!”

Now she was angry. “I paid them. You
know
I paid them.”

He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Again, we have evidence that suggests otherwise.”

Marian gripped the stick with both hands. “My lord sheriff,” she said, “the king may well wish not to antagonize the Earl of Huntington by keeping his son imprisoned.”

He displayed teeth in a grin. “The Earl of Huntington disinherited that son.”

“And if he
re
inherits him?”

“Difficult,” deLacey observed, “for a dead man.”

Clearly she had hoped he did not know. The color fled her face.

“A nice attempt,” he said kindly. “I do admire your courage and creativity. And I freely admit there
is
a chance the king will grant him mercy—he was after all a holy Crusader and a compatriot of his brother the late king—but until the current king’s will is known, I cannot release the prisoner.”

“And if I brought forward the earls to swear he was with them?”

Calmly he said, “It is for the king to decide.”

Tears glistened in her eyes, but did not spill over. “Why,” she began, “do you hate him so?”

DeLacey laughed. “He makes it easy.” He sat upright then, grasping a folded parchment. With great attention he unfolded it, smoothed it against the tabletop, and offered it. “I intended to send this to you. But as you are here . . .” He waved it. “Take it, Marian.”

“What is it?”

“Notification that the earl has acquired Ravenskeep, and that you are to leave.”

She clutched her stick more tightly. “The earl is dead.”

“Then his title and estates pass to the Crown, as he has no heir.” He waved the sheet again. “Perhaps you should go to London and beg John for your manor back. If you are very good to him—in bed, of course—he may even grant it.”

Unfortunately he was unable to see her reaction; one of his clerks arrived with three parchment sheets filled with crabbed writing. “My lord, the report you requested. For the king.”

“Ah!” DeLacey put down the eviction notice and accepted the fresh sheets, looked through them briefly. “All seems in order. Yes, I shall give this to Mercardier.” He nodded dismissal, and set the parchments on the table. He favored Marian with a distracted smile. “I’m sorry—have we further business? If not, you may go.”

“No,” she said tightly. “We have no further business.”

Bemusedly, he watched her turn and begin the slow, limping journey back down the hall. Then he took up the clerk’s report again and began to read through it, relishing the portions that underscored Mercardier’s incompetence and Locksley’s outlawry.

DeLacey grinned. He did not believe the king would grant anything other than execution to Robert of Locksley.

Once out of the hall proper—and out of the sheriff’s sight—Marian grabbed the first male servant she saw. With a hand pressed rigidly against her abdomen, she adopted an expression of supreme distress. “Garderobe!
Please—”

The servant, helpless in the face of potential female problems, immediately took her to the nearest garderobe. Marian thanked him hastily, jerked open the door and, emitting a piteous groan, stepped inside. Then she listened at the closed door even as she continued to make soft noises of distress, and was rewarded to hear steps receding quickly.

The garderobe was a tiny, noisome closet with a hole carved through the stone bench, leading below to the castle sewer. Quickly Marian leaned the wrapped bow against the door, untied her girdle and dropped it down the hole, then began working the chemise and shift off over her head. Those, too, went down the hole, though not without a wince of regret. Then she unwrapped the rolled tunic and hooded capelet and tugged both on, belting tunic and hosen into place. From the left boot she took the coiled bowstring and unrolled it, making sure there were neither knots nor twists. She put it between her teeth and began unwrapping the bow, discarding leather and sacking down the garderobe hole. When the bow was unencumbered once again she bent and strung it, smacking an elbow against the door. The belly of the bow scraped the wall.

She drew a deep breath, closing her eyes a moment. Her heart pounded. There was so little time, and so much yet to do.

Marian released the breath noisily, bleeding tension away, and reached down to untie the thong around her thigh. She pulled the arrows from her boot and thrust three of them through the back of her belt. The fourth one she nocked, but did not draw the bow. A finger hooked over the shaft at the grip and a little tension kept the arrow in place, though it would require adjustment when she drew the string back.

Now. Time to pray that she could reach the dungeon without being stopped; and additional prayer that one of the guards in the dungeon would have the keys to the cell.

She pressed an ear against the door. She heard nothing. Marian stuffed the braid down the back of her tunic underneath the capelet and drew the hood up. Softly she murmured, “Time to do this thing.”

 

DeLacey was carefully folding the three-page report to the king when Mercardier, heeding a summons, appeared. The sheriff continued to fold the parchment, then with all deliberation took up a green taper and dripped wax upon the outer sheet. He pressed the signet ring of Nottinghamshire into the emerald globule, allowed it to cool, tied a ribbon around the packet, then extended it to Mercardier.

“There,” he said. “You may now depart. I trust you will see to it this reaches the king with all speed.” Naturally there was a copy; naturally a second messenger would be sent.

Mercardier inclined his head slightly, took one stride to the dais and accepted the packet. “As my duty to the king requires, Lord Sheriff.”

“I do hope he shan’t be too hard on you,” deLacey said kindly. “The king can be—unpredictable.”

The pocked face was implacable. “I failed in my duty.”

“With no small thanks to Robin Hood.” DeLacey smiled broadly. “Though I understand from Gisbourne, you paid appropriate tribute to that worthy earlier.”

The mercenary said nothing.

DeLacey studied him. He had never known any man so self-controlled. “You are a difficult man to read, Mercardier. But I daresay in this I am right: you do not much admire Robert of Locksley.”

A muscle jumped in the shadowed jaw. “What has he done that is admirable? It is true he was a sound fighter—and for it he was knighted—but he was disarmed and captured by the enemy.” Clearly that was a supreme sin to the captain of mercenaries. Better a man die than give up his arms or person. “He did not ransom himself,” Mercardier continued; and now deLacey heard the contempt. “Nor did he ask his father the earl to do so, but expected it of Coeur de Lion; and it is not for a king to do, to ransom a mere knight!” A second very great sin; the harsh voice now was laden with emotion. At last deLacey had found the key. “Then he returns to England and steals the taxes.
Twice.”

The sheriff smothered laughter. “Indeed!”

High color underlay the pockmarks. “I say again he is a piss-poor excuse for a knight and Crusader, and I would piss on him at every opportunity.”

An idea occurred. Casually deLacey said, “It is very likely you shall never see Robert of Locksley again. Would you wish to say farewell? Perhaps make it extremely plain how seriously he has erred? Surely the Lionheart would be ashamed that a man he knighted, a man he himself ransomed, a man he loved so well, should dishonor his memory in such a despicable fashion.”

Something moved through the dark eyes. A spark of light, of an intensity so vivid it stunned the sheriff. No more was Mercardier the dutiful hired soldier taking no interest in anything other than money. There was something personal here.

DeLacey tapped fingers upon the table. “You once said you have no conscience.”

“I am a mercenary. My conscience is hired. Currently it belongs to King John.”

“Then I will make you a gift,” the sheriff said. “The opportunity to undertake one thing that is for yourself, Captain. Entirely for yourself.”

Mercardier frowned.

DeLacey took the ring of keys off his belt and tossed them onto the table. “Explain to Robert of Locksley how very, very much he has dishonored Coeur de Lion. No one will interrupt you.”

 

Robin, sitting against the wall, heard the sound of the door again. This time there were no voices, merely quiet footsteps. It was difficult to distinguish how many men might be approaching; but he had learned there were two guards stationed in the dungeon near the line of cells extending away from the pit. He thought it unlikely they were present for him—he was heavily chained and there was no way out of the pit. Probably their task was to guard the cell containing the gathered taxes.

He stood, canting his head back to stare up at the grille. The light remained wan, no more than what was offered by a single bracketed torch near the pit. Whoever came down the stairs carried neither lamp nor torch.

Robin listened closely for some indication of the visitor’s business. There was the grit of bootsole on stone, but nothing more. His belly clenched. Every fiber in his body, every corner of his soul, came alive with anticipation.

Movement. Someone was near the grate. Someone who bent down, unlocked it, then slid the bolt back. The iron lattice was peeled away, allowed to thump down against the stone floor.

Robin saw Mercardier standing at the rim, staring into the pit.

It registered instantly. Someone had given the mercenary the keys.

And Mercardier despised him.

Chains chimed as he stiffened and moved back out of the patch of light into the darkness of the pit. He had no weapon. He lacked even the ability to use his hands freely. And there was certainly no escape, no opportunity to hide, no chance to avoid what Mercardier planned.

This bore the mark of William deLacey.

Inside his head, Robin swore. A beating, no doubt. Possibly even murder.

The mercenary sat down upon the stone floor and dangled his legs over the rim of the pit. It was an altogether incongruous posture for Mercardier, Robin thought. It spoke of casual companionship, of relaxation, neither of which he had known in the man.

“When one is a mercenary,” Mercardier began, “one is subject to the whims of one’s patron. But as mercenaries are only hired when that patron wishes things done he himself has no desire to do, and cannot trust servants to do for him, generally the mercenary’s duty is one of enforcement. He guards, he fights, he kills. He also murders, if so ordered. He does not argue against such a thing, does not object to the individual he is hired to kill; he rarely cares what the dispute is about, or who the subject is. He is hired for his skills, not his opinions. And never for his conscience, which is nonexistent.”

Robin, standing below in the shadows, felt a chill in his flesh. “You will forgive me, I pray, if I am not particularly interested in the nature of being a mercenary.”

“But you should be,” Mercardier said with profound satisfaction. “I am your judge, you see.”

 

Gisbourne presented himself in the hall. DeLacey, who had not sent for him, raised an eloquent eyebrow. His seneschal was scowling. “I thought you sent Mercardier on his way with a report to the king.”

“So I have.”

“Then why did you permit him entrée to the taxes again?”

“I did not.”

“But I saw him going to the dungeon.”

“There is more in the dungeon than taxes, Gisbourne.”

“There is only Robert of Locksley, my lord. What business has Mercardier with him?”

“The king’s business,” deLacey answered smoothly. “My business. Your business. The business of the shire. The business of making certain an outlaw may not escape, or be rescued, or be deemed unimportant by a king with other concerns on his mind.”

Gisbourne’s eyes widened as he grasped the implication. “But, my lord—”

DeLacey cut him off. “In fact, I think I should like to witness the demise. To be certain, you see. To be very, very certain.” He rose. “You may go, Gisbourne. This is not your concern.”

 

Robin nodded, though mostly to himself. It was a tidy solution for all concerned. Why wait upon the king’s whim when one might very easily make the problem go away? All it required was a man willing to murder another. A man who had done such before, who had no opinion, no objection. No conscience.

It was impossible to rescue a dead man. And a dead man never escaped.

“A competent mercenary is, by nature, a good judge of character,” Mercardier continued. “If one is not, one will not succeed. And when one is the king’s captain of mercenaries, privy to the private matters of high lords and in the king’s confidence, one must be even more vigilant. So that day I first saw you, I studied you. And I knew then you were nothing like the king. He was garrulous and passionate; you were closed. Quiet. He was unstinting in his opinion of men, be they friend or foe; you kept your own counsel even among men who might favor it. When he was angry, you were cold. When he was joyous, you were restrained. He was a great tree of a man, a bulwark upon which nations are built; you were a stripling boy, weighing little more than my sword. Yet for all the differences between the two of you, there was one likeness:
you fought the war to win it.”

Perplexed, Robin stared up at the man. “What other reason is there to fight a war? Not to lose, surely.”

“Not to lose, no. But for many men war is merely an opportunity, a path to reward. They have little interest in the war itself, merely in victory. They forget that victory must be earned. Victory must be paid for in rivers of blood. But it must never be their own.”

Robin had witnessed those rivers of blood. He had killed, had spilled his share. The enemy’s. His own.

“A mercenary,” Mercardier continued inexorably, “serves as he is hired to serve. A season with this patron, a season with that. A skirmish here, a battle there. When one job is completed, he hopes for another. If he is good enough, he has no lack of opportunity; the patrons often will bid for his services.”

“Mercardier—”

“But now and again a patron becomes more than a patron. Now and again the mercenary realizes he has no other wish in the world but to serve this patron. Then it is not a job, not a service, not even a duty. But
honor.
As it was for me to serve Coeur de Lion.”

Mercardier rose. Moved away. Robin frowned.

There was the scrape of wood against stone, and then the narrow ladder was shoved over the edge. It slid down, landed in straw. Leaned there, offering exit.

“Come up,” Mercardier said.

Robin very nearly laughed. “I think not.”

Mercardier’s expression did not change. Then he disappeared from the rim of the pit. Robin heard the sound of something being dragged. A moment later a slack arm dropped over the edge, and the body quickly followed. When it landed, Robin saw it was one of the guards. Blood bloomed on his surcoat. He was clearly dead.

“Come up,” Mercardier repeated. “Do you wish more proof than that?”

Robin did not move.
“Why?”

“Coeur de Lion loved you well. Enough to ransom you from the Infidel, when he did no such thing for anyone else. It was not his duty to do so; he was the
king,
for the love of God! But he did it. And so, in his memory, I do this.”

 

Marian, hiding in the shadows behind a massive pillar, saw the sheriff striding down the corridor leading to the dungeon. It crossed her mind then that it would be a simple task to kill him; she need only loose the arrow and watch him die. But she could not. No more now than in Market Square, when she nearly shot him by mistake. And she was cursed with the imagination to comprehend what would follow: oh, indeed, she might win Robin free, but they would be hunted far more vigilantly for the murder of the sheriff than for simple robbery.

And yet DeLacey was going to the dungeon. Going to Robin, she did not doubt.

And the sheriff had the keys.

 

Disbelief flickered to life along with fresh hope. There had to be more. But Robin knew better than to make assumptions. “Keys,” he said sharply.

The ring was dropped down, chiming into straw. Robin scrabbled quickly after it, grabbed it, and began the process of fitting keys into the locks on his shackles.

“Allez, allez,”
Mercardier urged.

But none of the keys fit. He felt the sickening clench of his belly, the reestablished certainty that this was deLacey’s idea of a jest.

He threw the key ring into a corner of the pit and glared up at Mercardier.